In this article, I want to share with you the behind the scenes of the creation of an innovation workshop template.

What the fuck is a workshop template?

A workshop template is a Slide Deck which makes it possible for anyone to run an innovation workshop. In this presentation, every activity is introduced and described. The first workshop template I created is about the “brands like these” workshop. It’s a simple idea generation workshop.

The summary slide in the template

How long does it take?

The short answer is 11 to 12 hours, but let’s see together on what this time was spent:

Creating the template: about 4 hours

The creation of the template itself is one of the quickest tasks. It took me about 4 hours to create the template in Google Slides. Remember this is a workshop I already run a few times, so I already knew how I wanted to structure it. It still took a few hours as it was the first real workshop template I built and wanted to get feedback from other designers in order to be sure it all made sense.

Creating the videos: about 6-7 hours

I then thought: what if I didn’t only create the template but also give a detailed look at how you can run the workshop and why I have each slide in the template.

My little recording studio in our flat

To do that, I decided to record a how-to video. Usually, my videos are fully scripted before I shoot them. Here I tried something new as I improvised the content in front of the camera. 

This was definitely a very painful experience but still, I believe much faster than if I had to script a 12 Minutes video.

The shooting took me about one hour. And the editing of the videos for about six hours. 

Below you can see the two videos I created. The first is a summarized two Minutes how-to video. The second one is the full-length how-to guide for the really motivated people. 

Building the landing page: about 1 hour

With every template comes also a tiny sales page that explains what this new product is and why people should buy it.

The landing page for the workshop template

As this isn’t the first product I’m selling online I already had a good sense of what I wanted. It took me about one hour to create the landing page.

It takes a shit load of time

So, it basically took me between 11 to 12 hours to create all that is needed in order to sell my first real workshop template. That’s a lot of time. 

In the future, I hope that I will be able to reduce that time, specifically the whole editing phase. How do I plan to do that? By shooting more and more in freestyle, I hope I will be able to be more comfortable and shoot less “dirt”. I hope I’ll have to redo fewer takes and have less “euh…” moments that I will have to cut in the editing process.

Did this little behind the scenes article weak up your curiosity? You can check out the “brands like these” workshop template here. There you’ll find the template and also two free videos how-to guides that will teach you how to run this workshop on your own 💌

— Written on May 5, 2019